[Buildroot] Storing board configuration ?

[Buildroot] Storing board configuration ?

[Thomas Petazzoni]

Hello,

The work on cleaning up the target/ directory has been making some
progress lately: bootloaders-cleanup has been merged, linux-cleanup has
been through a first review phase and Dmytro Milinevskyy has
contributed the cleanup of the filesystem skeleton.

The last big part is the "board support", i.e what allows to configure
Buildroot to build a system for a particular hardware board, without
the user having to worry about kernel/bootloader/toolchain details.

Instead of having configuration details defined in makefiles in
target/device, I'd like to use defconfigs instead.

However, defconfigs are not perfect : they are large and they get
out-dated pretty quickly because they must store the value of *every*
existing option.

For that reason, I'm wondering whether we should limit the defconfigs
to the important options for a particular board and remove all other
option values. This would leave ~30 lines to a human-written defconfig
instead of ~1000 lines of automatically-generated defconfigs.

A "mini-defconfig" could look like :

======================================================================
# General
BR2_HAVE_DOT_CONFIG=y
BR2_arm=y
BR2_arm926t=y
BR2_ARM_EABI=y
BR2_PROJECT="at91sam9263ek"
BR2_HOSTNAME="AT91SAM9263EK"

# Root filesystem
BR2_TARGET_ROOTFS_JFFS2=y
BR2_TARGET_ROOTFS_JFFS2_NANDFLASH_2K_128K=y
BR2_TARGET_ROOTFS_JFFS2_PAGESIZE=0x800
BR2_TARGET_ROOTFS_JFFS2_EBSIZE=0x20000
BR2_TARGET_ROOTFS_JFFS2_NOCLEANMARKER=y
BR2_TARGET_ROOTFS_JFFS2_PAD=y
BR2_TARGET_ROOTFS_JFFS2_PADSIZE=0x02000000
BR2_TARGET_ROOTFS_JFFS2_LE=y

# Boot
BR2_TARGET_UBOOT=y
BR2_TARGET_UBOOT_BOARDNAME="at91sam9263ek"
BR2_TARGET_UBOOT_2009_01=y
BR2_TARGET_AT91BOOTSTRAP=y
BR2_TARGET_AT91BOOTSTRAP_BOARD="at91sam9263ek"
BR2_TARGET_AT91BOOT_DATAFLASHCARD=y
BR2_AT91BOOTSTRAP_JUMP_TO_DEFAULT=y
BR2_AT91BOOTSTRAP_JUMP_ADDR="0x23F00000"

# Kernel
BR2_LINUX_KERNEL=y
BR2_LINUX_KERNEL_2_6_34=y
BR2_LINUX_KERNEL_USE_DEFCONFIG=y
BR2_LINUX_KERNEL_DEFCONFIG="at91sam9263ek"
======================================================================

But if we do that, we would have to modify the main Makefile so that
when an user does "make foobar_defconfig", configs/foobar_defconfig is
used and for all options non-specified in the defconfig, the default
options would be choosen. So something like :

%_defconfig: $(TOPDIR)/configs/%_defconfig
        cp $^ .config
        @yes "" | $(MAKE) oldconfig

What do you think about this ?

Regards,

Thomas
-- 
Thomas Petazzoni, Free Electrons
Kernel, drivers, real-time and embedded Linux
development, consulting, training and support.
http://free-electrons.com

[Buildroot] Storing board configuration ?

[Paul Jones]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: buildroot-bounces at busybox.net [mailto:buildroot-
> bounces at busybox.net] On Behalf Of Thomas Petazzoni
> Sent: Sunday, 20 June 2010 10:36 PM
> To: buildroot at busybox.net
> Subject: [Buildroot] Storing board configuration ?
> 
> Hello,
> 
> The work on cleaning up the target/ directory has been making some
> progress lately: bootloaders-cleanup has been merged, linux-cleanup has
> been through a first review phase and Dmytro Milinevskyy has contributed
> the cleanup of the filesystem skeleton.
> 
> The last big part is the "board support", i.e what allows to configure
Buildroot
> to build a system for a particular hardware board, without the user having
to
> worry about kernel/bootloader/toolchain details.
> 
> Instead of having configuration details defined in makefiles in
target/device,
> I'd like to use defconfigs instead.
> 
> However, defconfigs are not perfect : they are large and they get
out-dated
> pretty quickly because they must store the value of *every* existing
option.
> 
> For that reason, I'm wondering whether we should limit the defconfigs to
the
> important options for a particular board and remove all other option
values.
> This would leave ~30 lines to a human-written defconfig instead of ~1000
> lines of automatically-generated defconfigs.
> 
> A "mini-defconfig" could look like :
> 
> ==========================================================
> ============
> # General
> BR2_HAVE_DOT_CONFIG=y
> BR2_arm=y
> BR2_arm926t=y
> BR2_ARM_EABI=y
> BR2_PROJECT="at91sam9263ek"
> BR2_HOSTNAME="AT91SAM9263EK"
> 
> # Root filesystem
> BR2_TARGET_ROOTFS_JFFS2=y
> BR2_TARGET_ROOTFS_JFFS2_NANDFLASH_2K_128K=y
> BR2_TARGET_ROOTFS_JFFS2_PAGESIZE=0x800
> BR2_TARGET_ROOTFS_JFFS2_EBSIZE=0x20000
> BR2_TARGET_ROOTFS_JFFS2_NOCLEANMARKER=y
> BR2_TARGET_ROOTFS_JFFS2_PAD=y
> BR2_TARGET_ROOTFS_JFFS2_PADSIZE=0x02000000
> BR2_TARGET_ROOTFS_JFFS2_LE=y
> 
> # Boot
> BR2_TARGET_UBOOT=y
> BR2_TARGET_UBOOT_BOARDNAME="at91sam9263ek"
> BR2_TARGET_UBOOT_2009_01=y
> BR2_TARGET_AT91BOOTSTRAP=y
> BR2_TARGET_AT91BOOTSTRAP_BOARD="at91sam9263ek"
> BR2_TARGET_AT91BOOT_DATAFLASHCARD=y
> BR2_AT91BOOTSTRAP_JUMP_TO_DEFAULT=y
> BR2_AT91BOOTSTRAP_JUMP_ADDR="0x23F00000"
> 
> # Kernel
> BR2_LINUX_KERNEL=y
> BR2_LINUX_KERNEL_2_6_34=y
> BR2_LINUX_KERNEL_USE_DEFCONFIG=y
> BR2_LINUX_KERNEL_DEFCONFIG="at91sam9263ek"
> ==========================================================
> ============
> 
> But if we do that, we would have to modify the main Makefile so that when
> an user does "make foobar_defconfig", configs/foobar_defconfig is used
> and for all options non-specified in the defconfig, the default options
would
> be choosen. So something like :
> 
> %_defconfig: $(TOPDIR)/configs/%_defconfig
>         cp $^ .config
>         @yes "" | $(MAKE) oldconfig
> 
> What do you think about this ?

Sounds good to me - I actually had the same idea the other day, but I don't
know enough to do anything about it.
 


Paul.

[Buildroot] Storing board configuration ?

[Michael S. Zick]

On Sun June 20 2010, Paul Jones wrote:
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: buildroot-bounces at busybox.net [mailto:buildroot-
> > bounces at busybox.net] On Behalf Of Thomas Petazzoni
> > Sent: Sunday, 20 June 2010 10:36 PM
> > To: buildroot at busybox.net
> > Subject: [Buildroot] Storing board configuration ?
> > 
> > Hello,
> > 
> > The work on cleaning up the target/ directory has been making some
> > progress lately: bootloaders-cleanup has been merged, linux-cleanup has
> > been through a first review phase and Dmytro Milinevskyy has contributed
> > the cleanup of the filesystem skeleton.
> > 
> > The last big part is the "board support", i.e what allows to configure
> Buildroot
> > to build a system for a particular hardware board, without the user having
> to
> > worry about kernel/bootloader/toolchain details.
> > 
> > Instead of having configuration details defined in makefiles in
> target/device,
> > I'd like to use defconfigs instead.
> > 
> > However, defconfigs are not perfect : they are large and they get
> out-dated
> > pretty quickly because they must store the value of *every* existing
> option.
> > 
> > For that reason, I'm wondering whether we should limit the defconfigs to
> the
> > important options for a particular board and remove all other option
> values.
> > This would leave ~30 lines to a human-written defconfig instead of ~1000
> > lines of automatically-generated defconfigs.
> > 
> > A "mini-defconfig" could look like :
> > 
> > ==========================================================
> > ============
> > # General
> > BR2_HAVE_DOT_CONFIG=y
> > BR2_arm=y
> > BR2_arm926t=y
> > BR2_ARM_EABI=y
> > BR2_PROJECT="at91sam9263ek"
> > BR2_HOSTNAME="AT91SAM9263EK"
> > 
> > # Root filesystem
> > BR2_TARGET_ROOTFS_JFFS2=y
> > BR2_TARGET_ROOTFS_JFFS2_NANDFLASH_2K_128K=y
> > BR2_TARGET_ROOTFS_JFFS2_PAGESIZE=0x800
> > BR2_TARGET_ROOTFS_JFFS2_EBSIZE=0x20000
> > BR2_TARGET_ROOTFS_JFFS2_NOCLEANMARKER=y
> > BR2_TARGET_ROOTFS_JFFS2_PAD=y
> > BR2_TARGET_ROOTFS_JFFS2_PADSIZE=0x02000000
> > BR2_TARGET_ROOTFS_JFFS2_LE=y
> > 
> > # Boot
> > BR2_TARGET_UBOOT=y
> > BR2_TARGET_UBOOT_BOARDNAME="at91sam9263ek"
> > BR2_TARGET_UBOOT_2009_01=y
> > BR2_TARGET_AT91BOOTSTRAP=y
> > BR2_TARGET_AT91BOOTSTRAP_BOARD="at91sam9263ek"
> > BR2_TARGET_AT91BOOT_DATAFLASHCARD=y
> > BR2_AT91BOOTSTRAP_JUMP_TO_DEFAULT=y
> > BR2_AT91BOOTSTRAP_JUMP_ADDR="0x23F00000"
> > 
> > # Kernel
> > BR2_LINUX_KERNEL=y
> > BR2_LINUX_KERNEL_2_6_34=y
> > BR2_LINUX_KERNEL_USE_DEFCONFIG=y
> > BR2_LINUX_KERNEL_DEFCONFIG="at91sam9263ek"
> > ==========================================================
> > ============
> > 
> > But if we do that, we would have to modify the main Makefile so that when
> > an user does "make foobar_defconfig", configs/foobar_defconfig is used
> > and for all options non-specified in the defconfig, the default options
> would
> > be choosen. So something like :
> > 
> > %_defconfig: $(TOPDIR)/configs/%_defconfig
> >         cp $^ .config
> >         @yes "" | $(MAKE) oldconfig
> > 
> > What do you think about this ?
> 
> Sounds good to me - I actually had the same idea the other day, but I don't
> know enough to do anything about it.
> 

Already been done, see Aboriginal Linux build system which uses mini-configs
and for the scripts to handle them.  Previously known as Firmware Linux.
http://aboriginal.impactlinux.com/

Mike

> 
> 
> Paul.
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> buildroot mailing list
> buildroot at busybox.net
> http://lists.busybox.net/mailman/listinfo/buildroot
> 
> 

[Buildroot] Storing board configuration ?

[Peter Korsgaard]

>>>>> "Thomas" == Thomas Petazzoni <thomas.petazzoni@free-electrons.com> writes:

Hi,

 Thomas> But if we do that, we would have to modify the main Makefile so that
 Thomas> when an user does "make foobar_defconfig", configs/foobar_defconfig is
 Thomas> used and for all options non-specified in the defconfig, the default
 Thomas> options would be choosen. So something like :

 Thomas> %_defconfig: $(TOPDIR)/configs/%_defconfig
 Thomas>         cp $^ .config
 Thomas>         @yes "" | $(MAKE) oldconfig

 Thomas> What do you think about this ?

I like it. It will ofcourse hide any new questions you might have wanted
to get asked about, but that's not so bad.

-- 
Bye, Peter Korsgaard

[Buildroot] Storing board configuration ?

[Paul Jones]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: buildroot-bounces at busybox.net [mailto:buildroot-
> bounces at busybox.net] On Behalf Of Peter Korsgaard
> Sent: Thursday, 24 June 2010 7:03 AM
> To: Thomas Petazzoni
> Cc: buildroot at busybox.net
> Subject: Re: [Buildroot] Storing board configuration ?
> 
> >>>>> "Thomas" == Thomas Petazzoni <thomas.petazzoni@free-
> electrons.com> writes:
> 
> Hi,
> 
>  Thomas> But if we do that, we would have to modify the main Makefile so
> that  Thomas> when an user does "make foobar_defconfig",
> configs/foobar_defconfig is  Thomas> used and for all options
non-specified
> in the defconfig, the default  Thomas> options would be choosen. So
> something like :
> 
>  Thomas> %_defconfig: $(TOPDIR)/configs/%_defconfig
>  Thomas>         cp $^ .config
>  Thomas>         @yes "" | $(MAKE) oldconfig
> 
>  Thomas> What do you think about this ?
> 
> I like it. It will ofcourse hide any new questions you might have wanted
to get
> asked about, but that's not so bad.


We could add another command like make foobar_defconfig_ask to cover both
cases.


Paul.